Washington DC trip, part deux

I was back in DC, this time to pick up my wife and son at Dulles and spend a weekend in the Capital.  Unfortunately, I forget to bring my camera, and I had to fall back on my mobile phone camera this time.  As a result, I didn’t take as many pictures this time.  I managed a few though, and of course had another good walkabout in my favorite American city.

Being a VIP, I was greeted by the first family at Dulles.  I had to turn down the invitation to the state dinner unfortunately.  I had a previous engagement to attend.

The first day my wife and son were extremely jet lagged, sleep deprived, and generally just exhausted.  So we picked up the rental car and I drove the family around Georgetown and downtown Washington DC just to get a feel for the city.  We checked into the hotel at 3 PM and rested for awhile, then grabbed a hamburger  dinner, and upon returning to the hotel the weary travelers fell asleep 19:00, leaving me to read in the hotel room for the next three hours.  Luckily I brought “Interzone” by William S. Burroughs, quite a fascinating read!

It was a good thing that we stayed in the hotel, however, as the skies opened up and a quick thunderstorm engulfed the metro area around 19:30.  The next morning, my son crawled next to me and began slapping me on the chest.  It was still dark outside, and it was 5:30 AM and he was ready to go.  Might as well get an early start, right?  As the morning progressed I found the skies to be clear and the humidity to be significantly less.  We made out for “the Mall”, the green area in the middle of the Federal district of Washington DC.

The World War II Memorial – each of the pillars surrounding the fountain represent one of the fifty states or one of the American territories.  The tower to the end marks the Pacific front, and behind me  is the tower for the Atlantic front.

In front of the towers are small fountains that have the names of the battles engraved into stone.  I remember hearing about the battle of Coral Sea growing up.  Of course on the Pacific side you also have the battle of Guadalcanal, Siapan/Guam, Okinawa, and even Japan.  The Atlantic side has engravings for Normandy and all of the the major battles in Europe.

While the World War II Monument lies at one end of the reflection pool, the Lincoln Memorial lies at the other.  Back in 1999 I took a great photo just before dusk of the Washington Monument (the huge spike in this picture) projected into the reflection pool.  The pool now just collects rain water, and I overheard some locals stating that the Parks and Recreation Dept. turned off the water because of budget cuts.  Perhaps the reflection pool is also a reflection on the state of the American economy?

The White House – it is hard to make out, but there is a black fence about 100 meters forward, and in this picture it would be in the center.  Back in 2003 you could stand at that fence and get a much better view of the White House.  Now there is a metal chain link fence pushing the public back another hundred meters.  On the other side of the White House the streets are all closed and are heavily guarded.

Even though the White House and Reflection Pool were disappointing, the weather was fabulous, there were plenty of other families out and about, and the walk around the Mall was really worth it.

It was getting close to lunch time so we headed to Pentagon City by metro for a food-court lunch and fulfilled the missus’ desire for shopping.  We bought Liam some summer sandal shoes, and as soon as we left the shoe store he had already taken one of his shoes off and tries to throw it away.  This boy really doesn’t like shoes!  We returned to the hotel for a short rest, and around 6 PM we headed out for Alexandria, VA.

Cobble stone streets and row houses in old towne Alexandria

Alexandria is a very old town in Virginia that has become quite a tourist spot.  The Old Towne area has beautiful row houses and a park on the water front.  There are many art galleries, boutique shops, and fancy restaurants as well.  It’s  not a town for children for sure, the sidewalks are narrow and the restaurant tables are packed together as tightly as one finds in downtown Tokyo.  It also seems to be a meet-up place as there were lots of young people, salaried professionals enjoying their “single” days.

The trees grow around the houses – these houses have probably been here longer than the trees!

Such a wide alley with nothing in it!

I couldn’t resist taking a picture of this tacky souvenir shop at the airport.  I guess they couldn’t come up with a better name…

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UK Election Map

The UK election earlier this month was quite interesting, it certainly kept me glued to the BBC news reports until Gordon Brown stepped down.  The Economist has a nice interactive map of the electoral results by seat.  I took a screen capture of it here just for reference:

Blue represents the Tories, red for New Labour, and tan/yellow for the Liberal Democrats.

I just find it fascinating that the majority of the votes for the Tories came from England.  There is a pocket of Labour support in Northern England and London, but look at all of that blue!  Wales seems to be split amongst three parties, and Scotland mostly goes to Labour and the Lib Dems.  Divisions like this along some sort of border like this remind me a lot of the coastal and Northern states in the US that tend to vote “blue” (Democrat) while the inner states and Southern states tend to go “red” (Republican).

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